Rest
by Isaiah58
Summary: Brother bonding a few days after their coronation. Lots of introspective Edmund and some mush at the end. one shot


**AN:** I don't own anything. Don't sue me. Constructive criticism is very welcomed, as it helps me to learn.

"Pete?" Edmund poked his through the door cautiously, feeling the huge stones of the unfamiliar castle weighing down on his shoulders.

After spending his whole life in the small brick house in Finchley, this place seemed somehow unbalanced and unwieldy. Things were too far apart, walls were too thick, floors and halls echoed too loudly with the constant click of hooves and claws.

The cats weren't too bad, he had found himself thinking on more than one occasion over the last few days. Maybe they just reminded him of Aslan, but there was something comforting in not being able to hear their approach from miles away.

He had thought that nothing could be less welcoming than ice, that frigid cold that stole the life from your bones and made your gut ache with the effort of shivering, but stone was worse. Stone like the statues that had decorated her castle. Stone like the warriors on the battlefield. Stone like Peter had nearly become, while he lay, helpless, in the grass not five yards away.

Ice could be melted, but stone stayed forever, sealing lips mid scream and blinding eyes in their moment of utter terror.

Aslan had banished the ice, but it was the stone that haunted Edmund's thoughts.

The stone had been his fault.

He had said the wrong things, done the wrong things, nearly not been fast enough in shattering the wand.

And she had promised. Promised that their tortured statues would sit beside him in the dungeon, trapped in that static state until long after his own bones had been picked clean by wild animals. Promised that he would hear as their last cries died into stony silence. Promised that he would be to blame.

"Yeah, Ed?" His brother's voice sounded tired, and the quiet boy almost turned away, almost padded back down the hall on silent feet, more willing to endure the cavernous silence of his own rooms than to cause Peter trouble, but the soft clicking of claws in the passageway, smooth and steady, a dog, a big dog – perhaps even a wolf, something deep in his mind warned him – was just loud enough to startle him right through his elder brother's door.

"It's only a golden retriever." The quizzical look on Peter's face faded as he too heard the noise in the hall.

"She must be an errand runner. I swear she's been back and forth a dozen times already this morning."

"Oh." Edmund remained rooted in his spot, trying to keep the terror from painting its way across his face.

Claws; irretractable claws. Claws on ice, stone; tearing through the forest; looking for his family; seeking to destroy them; knowing where to look – because _he_ had told them.

Surely, somewhere in this land that he had nearly died for there was something that _wouldn't_ set off his memories.

"_You're worse than a soldier home from the war."_

Lucy had meant the words kindly, but they rubbed nonetheless. If only there had never been a war, if only dad had never gone away, if only the Germans had never bombed Finchly, he wouldn't be here right now. He wouldn't be jumping at his own shadow, certain that there was a hag behind every curtain and a statue that wasn't one around every corner, ready to fix him with its unforgiving gaze, stone eyes watching impassively as She sent her servants to whip him.

If only home had remained all that there ever was.

"Ed?" Peter's hands were touching his face, awkward, uncertain, as they sought to bring him back from his thoughts, and Edmund realized once again that, crowns or no, they were still children, awkward children who didn't know how to act like adults – supposing that anyone here actually knew how human adults were expected to behave.

"Come sit with me." Peter gestured towards the couch that he had maneuvered until it faced the courtyard.

_Those things are heavier than they look._ Edmund flexed him own sore arm, remembering the start his faun valet had given him when the slight creature suddenly appeared at the other end of the unwieldy piece of furniture, insisting on helping his young king.

"You look terrible."

"I'm okay." The boy accepted his brother's offer anyhow, not quite comfortable sitting with his back towards the door but trusting – or trying to trust – that Peter knew what he was doing.

"I'm sure you are." Peter settled on the couch beside him, comfortingly warm and alive, comfortingly not stone, even from this distance.

"You only wandered halfway across the castle because you felt like doing a little sightseeing."

Edmund gave no answer, keen eyes picking out his own rooms kitty corner across the courtyard, Lucy's across from his, and Susan's, there, directly in front of them, on the southernmost side of the castle.

_And, the kitchens there. The great hall there. The library-- _

_Stop it._

He pulled his thoughts to a stubborn halt, trying to refuse the hyperawareness that had kept him awake since they had moved into the castle two nights ago.

_Aslan put us here. We're safe._

"Stomach hurts." Ed offered the excuse limply, almost certain that Peter wouldn't believe him. Back home, a simple stomach ache would never have been enough to send him running to Peter, perhaps to Susan, when he had been very young, or to Lucy more recently, with the hope that tormenting her would distract him from his own pain.

"_Are you alright, Ed? You look positively ill?"_

The woods hadn't been the first time she had asked that question, and sitting on the ice in the Witch's dungeon, feeling his body grow numb from the cold even while his heart burned him with accusations, he had wished that once, just once, he had given her a truthful answer.

She was alive and she was safe, but, because of him, because of his white lies, his baby sister had watched her hero die, had seen wounds that no eight year old should ever have to see.

"From your scar?" The older boy's brow furrowed in concern, obviously uncertain what to do with an Edmund who would come to him for such things.

"Is it bad?"

_No, Peter. It feels wonderful. That's why I'm sitting on your couch._

He bit back the harsh words, not wanting to hurt his sometimes daft brother any more than he already had. If nothing else, the bandage around Peter's upper arm was more than enough proof of what Narnia had already demanded of its oldest monarch.

When it healed, that scar, like so many others that would carried around the palace, would be a reminder of what he had caused.

"Sometimes." He reached up hesitantly to play with Peter's bandage, snapping off the frayed strings with quick fingers.

"Does your arm hurt?"

"Sometimes." Peter caught his fingers between his own bigger ones, trapping him with the physical contact that was, oh so much, gentler than Hers had been.

"When was the last time that you slept, Ed, really slept?"

"Don't know."

Dark lashes almost closed as he cast his gaze to the floor, trying to avoid the piercing eyes that were searching his out.

"The professor's, maybe." He tried to reach back in his mind, searching for an answer that would appease his brother. It didn't seem as if he could remember ever sleeping well. Granted, things had been worse since getting here, but night had never been a pleasant time. Maybe before the war, but that seemed so long ago.

"Yeah." Peter must have believed him, because a long arm snaked out to pull him into a warm embrace, heedless of the way that the younger boy stiffened guiltily. "Me neither. Susan's liable to drug us if we don't start getting rest."

There was something so normal about the way that Peter rested his chin on Edmund's head, the way that his warm breath stirred through the dark hair; something almost, familiar –

_Tight arms wrapped themselves around his chest, a sleepy head resting contentedly on top of his own._

The memories, memories that had been lost in the terror of the last several years, came rushing back.

_Peter perched on Dad's lap, heaving with all of his strength to pull Eddy up to join them._

_Their father's musky scent mingling with the soap smell that clung to a just bathed Peter. _

_Peter using his handkerchief to wipe away the blood after Edmund skinned his knee. _

_Falling back asleep to the steady sound of Peter's murmuring voice after being woken by a nightmare. _

_Being loved._

_Being cared for._

_Being safe._

Without trying, he melted into his brother's arms, savoring the newfound familiarity of the moment, and he heard Peter sigh in soft relief.

"Well," The words slipped easily from Edmund's lips, "I guess we better get some rest then."

"Yeah." Peter pulled him a little tighter, relaxed for the first time in days. "I guess we better."


End file.
